Like a lot of people, I signed up on Twitter early in 2009. After getting the hang of it, I became inspired by twitter’s 140 character limit and had a twitter-specific painting idea: what if I painted a portrait of a fellow twitterer’s dog in less than 140 minutes?
Because they would be “studies” it would be a small enough time investment that I could work it into my painting schedule. Plus, I have been wanting to loosen up my brush work a bit and the time constraint alone would force me to use a freer, more painterly style. All of that sounded good to me. If I could pull it off.
I decided it was more about the challenge than actually pulling it off so I held the first dog photo contest in April. I asked fellow twitterers to submit photos of their pooches for me to paint as an experiment. I was surprised though when I only received a single entry! (Odds are good tweeps, send them in next time!) It was from @surfersteve of his beautiful Golden Retriever, Makai:
Makai, surfersteve's pooch
Needless to say, Steve won.
It was tough at first getting into the swing of things and working at a totally different pace. But the clock was ticking and there was no time to do otherwise so in I jumped.
Taking note of the time before getting to work
The compressed time limit ended up being strangely freeing, rather than constrictive. After 140 minutes of work, I posted my first twitter dog painting. And when I found out that Makai had sadly passed away month or so before the contest, I decided Steve should juts have the portrait (if he wanted it). After it all, it was his dog.
Coincidentally, Steve and his wife happened to be coming through town that week so we were able to meet up in person which was great! They were so appreciative and cool, it made it easy to fork over the painting:
Starbuck's portrait hand off to Steve
It was great to receive some positive feedback from the twitterverse about the painting too, including Steve’s own:
“Aimée, you have painted a memory I will cherish for the rest of my life! My dog Makai had past away and her painting has successfully captured the thoughtful character of my best buddy. Her work has really meant a lot to me and I could not think of a better way to commemorate my pet. Thanks again!”
And because it went so well, I ran another contest this month (May). But this time I smartened up and officially announced that the winner would received the painting–GRATIS. And, surprise! There was 300% increase in photo submissions. That’s right, three whole entries. Chris, aka @fourleggedmedia, and his Golden Retriever (yet again!), Mackenzie were the winners this round.
Previous winner MacKenzie's portrait progression
Upon receiving his new portrait, Chris had this to say:
“It’s hard for me to write this note as I cannot stop starring at your painting. It’s…amazing! You captured Mackenzie, and her sweet, soft face perfectly. Thank you so, so much! You have no idea what this means to me.” – Chris
You can check out Chris’ pics of unpacking his new portrait on his blog, www.mackenziespeaks.com. It was very cool to see this as I had never seen what my paintings look like all packaged up (I’ve got some great shipping people who I trust to pack my work up for me).
These 140 twitter dog portraits have been such a great experience all the way around, I’m going to keep running contest as long as my schedule can allow it. I’ll be announcing another photo contest soon and creating another 140 minute dog portrait for the winner. So stay tuned, follow me on twitter if you like, and send those dog photo links. Remember, odds are good!
If you’d like me to spend a tad more time than two hours on your own dog, please check out my website www.aimeehoover.com and send me an a tweet. Or send me a whole entire email if you’re long winded (like me).
Thanks for reading.
